


Remembering

by darkmoon711



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmoon711/pseuds/darkmoon711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a AU of a fanfiction called Campfic, which KMA and I authored together on Livejournal. The idea is that Rodney and John fell in love when they were 16 at a Science Summer Camp. But the idea is that after that happens, they fall out of touch. John and Rodney are now on Atlantis just like in the show but with a backstory. This is a moment from The Siege.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering

Title: Remembering  
Category: Angst   
Rating: PG  
Pairings: Rodney/John  
Timeline: After Episode 19 (THE SIEGE (part 1))  
Summary: This is an AU of kma and my AU Campfic. What if Rodney and John on Atlantis are the Rodney and John from Campfic? Remember this is AU of the AU, so no, I'm not spoiling anything except for the first 3 chapters. Anything else, comes from my own mind.

Thanks: alfirin_kirinki for dealing with my need for secrecy, and for being the best Beta in all the land. You've made this a better fic then I thought I had in me. ::HUGGLE::

 

Elizabeth, Carson and John waited in the hanger bay. Sadness permeated the air as they waited for the failed mission to the Atlantean defense satellite to return. Rodney’s voice had had a broken tone in the last contact, and as he walked off the Puddle Jumper, the disbelief was resounding in his almost vacant crystalline blue eyes. His normally flurried, fluent movements were replaced with thrashes of uncoordinated jerks. Carson, for Rodney’s sake, had enforced a required rest for remaining members of the mission. Everyone in the room knew there wasn’t time for rest, but one look at Rodney knew it was needed.

Rodney sank into the bed with a strange ease he normally never would have accomplished; exhaustion and emotional strain were finally crashing down upon him. Atlantis had lost Peter Grodin, and they failed to destroy the Wraith Hiveships. Rodney pulled back a corner of his bedding, and unearthed a picture. With a tired, almost broken sigh, Rodney looked down. It was cracked, and folded in spots. His mouth twitched towards a smile. 

A young Rodney and John smiled up at him from the picture. John was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt, and camo shorts before they had became ‘cool’. He had a stupid grin that seemed to knot up Rodney’s stomach, even now. Unlike the one he presented for the galaxy to see these day, this grin still held an air of innocence that could almost felt through the picture. Rodney tried not to look at the young version of himself. It was a reminder that he had been happy. Rodney did miss that shirt. The ’I’m With Stupid’ had been given a geek twist, when stupid was written in binary. 

A hasty scrawl on the back of the picture read Northern California Math and Science Summer Camp 1984.

Rodney looked up to make sure his room was still empty, as if he expected someone to walk in. He wanted to be able to immerse himself in his memories of his summer as a junior camp counselor; the summer he fell in love, and the summer that broke his heart. He had been determined to just survive that summer. He wasn’t expecting it to be the most memorable time of his life. Nor did he expect to care enough to hold reminders of it. 

Rodney’s fingertips traced the curve of John’s young face.

John Sheppard was a junior camp counselor too, just as he had been for several years previously. He enjoyed it; went along for the fun of it. Rodney, on the other hand, was just doing this to prove to a university that he was old enough to handle responsibility.

He hated children then, and the camp didn’t change his opinion. Actually he hated them so much that his campers were referred to as ‘Rodney’s Little Bastards’. He pondered how Kavanagh and Peter would feel to be still referred as such. A single helpless sob broke from his lips as he remembered that Peter wouldn’t be feeling anything anymore. Rodney lifted his head, and blinked as he willed the tears back.

He wondered if John recognized them. Peter really hadn’t changed, with the exception of getting taller. He had filled out in the chest area a little. Peter would always be the little runt who had grown a backbone that not even Rodney could grind out of him. He had kept that strength even at the end. 

Rodney realized with a heavy heart that John must have repressed the memory of that summer. It still hurt that John seemed to remember even his second grade teacher, but not Rodney and their relationship. 

He looked down the picture and grimaced. He was glad that he had the laser surgery to get rid of the stupid glasses, but sadly he never did lose the weight. A hand went his thinning hair, as he looked down at the slight curls they had been. He almost missed those curls. On the other hand, John looked better with age. The hair was never tamed; Rodney smiled as he remembered how this hand got stuck in John’s hair in a heated make-out session. They were just happy to be together. The worst thing they had to worry about was getting caught making out by a senior camp counselor, or the fear that he would die from running around.

There were days Rodney wondered why this picture was his one personal item. Then there were days like today, were it was the only thing keeping him sane. He could immerse himself in the memories, unwind from the day. With a look, Rodney could taste the air around the summer camp. It was a woody taste with a hint of chemicals from the chemistry tent. He could feel John’s hair wrapping around his fingers, as if begging them not to leave it. The breath that John would heave out after a heavy make-out session could even been felt on Rodney’s neck.

Rodney’s eyes slide shut as he allowed the memories of John float across his lids. John, who had befriended him even after Rodney had insulted him and looked down at him, smiling at Rodney while the sprinklers were raining on them. Rodney groaned at the images of John in varied stages of undress that came after that moment of being enthralled by the water droplets moving down John’s naked chest.

Sadly, one of his favorite moments was tinted with sadness now. A few days after the sprinkler incident, when John and Rodney had taken their campers to the shower block to bathe, Peter had decided to introduce himself to Rodney. Peter’s short words of encouragement, though Rodney would never admit it to anyone else even at times to himself, gave him the strength to actually try for more with John. Even though Peter was talking about the McKay charm with kids, and how he had actually thought Rodney was doing a decent job. It was a push towards John who also didn’t think Rodney was a screw-up. 

Peter couldn’t laugh with Rodney about how big of a screw-up Rodney actually was, now. It should have been Rodney in the satellite, not Peter. Rodney felt his self-preservation instincts, for once, take a backseat to deep seated guilt.

As Rodney closed his eyes he remembered what Peter said about this being a one way trip. ‘Doesn’t matter if we die there, Rodney. It matters that we got there to begin with,’ rang in his ears like a bell.

He quickly kissed John’s smiling face, then tucked the picture under his mattress again, not caring for once that it was an unmanly action. Then, unlike the devote Atheist that Rodney claimed to be, he whispered a prayer to whoever would listen, for survival. If John and Rodney survived, Rodney promised that he would tell John that he still felt the same as he did twenty years ago. He just had to come up with a way to make sure he could keep that promise. Peter’s sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.


End file.
